Not-So-Bright Right

In his short, calm essay Posner traces the rise of the conservative movement from the 1960s to its “electoral success with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1981″ to its apogee with, among other markers Posner lists, the end of the Cold War, “the essentially conservative policies, especially in economics, of the Clinton administration” and the “early years of of the Bush administration.”

In his opening paragraph, Posner links the decline of the movement to its success. In fact, Posner, who is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (appointed by Reagan) and blogs at his own site as well as The Atlantic, says he was happy to stop and smell the roses even before George W. Bush took office.

By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of “originalism,” the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded. All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004.

Of course, there were many conservatives who wanted to keep going, and they did.

My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings. That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives; the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming, the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials, the neglect of management and expertise in government; a continued preoccupation with abortion; and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits, the Medicare drug plan, excessive foreign borrowing, and asset-price inflation.

By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party.

Since November conservatives have spilt much ink and pixels on the topic of What Went Wrong. Even among all that, writes Jonathan Singer at MyDD, Posner’s critique stands out:

What’s interesting about this isn’t that it’s an example of a conservative chiding the Republican Party for abandoning its conservative roots, because we have seen quite a bit of that in recent weeks and months (indeed, that seems to be the common wisdom among many in the upper echelons of the party). No, what makes this stand out is that one of the leading progenitors of modern conservatism is in effect saying that the ideology itself has gone haywire, that its failings are a direct result of misdirected focus. Some conservatives might think that George W. Bush led the GOP astray by not devoting enough attention to repealing the estate tax (and it’s worth noting that Posner stays away from demagoguing on the issue by calling it by another poll-tested name) or by resisting the rights of homosexuals — but Posner clearly isn’t one of them.

Matt Yglesias, who says Posner is “definitely a political conservative, a Reagan appointee, and an important product of the conservative legal movement,” agrees that Posner’s post “is unusual, even among the dissident camp in the conservative movement.” Why? Because Posner is willing “to acknowledge that (a) conservatism is as conservatism does and you can’t just wash your hands of George W. Bush, and (b) that the failures of conservatism-in-practice were really comprehensive across a whole swathe of different policy domains.”

Posner may have been a Reagan appointee, but you can’t go by that (Eisenhower, after all, appointed Warren and Brennan). Posner may have been affiliated with the market-friendly wing of the law and economics movement, but you can’t go by that either. . . .

I addressed this issue a long time ago, concluding that Posner’s documented record puts him in opposition to virtually every major conservative principle.

That aside, Bainbridge says he concurs with much of Posner’s analysis, and endorses Rick Moran’s take on the whole thing. Moran, writing at Rightwing Nuthouse, says that “Posner’s real gripe — and the gripe of many less ideological conservatives — is that ‘the new conservatism [is] powered largely by emotion and religion and [has]for the most part weak intellectual groundings.'”

Amen and Hallelujah. What Posner refers to as “new” conservatism (a term I will be shamelessly stealing from now on), calls on such intellectual luminaries as Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, and Beck, for sustenance. In this, the leading lights of the new conservatism dole out philosophy and rationale the way a Baskin Robbins ice cream server spoons whipped creme on to his concoctions. The result are that ideas and concepts with the heft of cotton candy, but extremely palatable to the narrow minded, are passed off as conservative dogma.

Religion has been confused with “traditional values” in order to justify the infallibility of many positions on social issues. Posner points specifically to abortion but might have also included gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, and the teaching of creationism in schools. And the slice of conservatism that also identifies itself as “evangelical” — influential beyond their numbers — makes these “values” the centerpiece of their political universe.

Ronald Reagan was the original fiscal incontinent. And the substitution of will for intellect — was it ever any greater than in the rush to cut taxes to raise revenues, or in Alexander Haig’s belief that U.S. national security would be enhanced if the IDF gave the Syrian army a thrashing in Lebanon? We had to rely on the alliance of Nancy Reagan and her astrologer to get a sane policy toward Gorbachev, for God’s sake. And cultural conservatives — if I understand Posner, his complaint is that Reagan paid them only lip service and they patiently sat in the back of the bus and were quiet, while Bush, Palin, and Joe the Plumber take them seriously.

And, of course, the piece of Reagan-era conservatism of which Posner was most proud — deregulation and the trimming-back of government — has either turned out to be (a) destructive, or (b) accomplished by Carter and Clinton.

Posner ends his essay by noting the “liberal excess in the policies and plans of the new administration” will provide “targets for informed conservative critique,” and perhaps a rebound.

Not everyone is as sanguine. At FiveThiryEight, Nate Silver does the Nate Silver thing and produces a chart that shows the rising percentage of post-graduate-degree-holding voters who vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, from approximately 40 percent for Carter to almost 60 percent for Obama. Maybe the party itself is suffering a brain-drain?

Obviously, this data is far from perfect: Having attended the University of Chicago, where there are plenty of booksmart people that you wouldn’t consider particularly bright, I can tell you that the correlation between intelligence and educational attainment is considerably less than one-to-one. Still, Republicans have gradually been losing the egghead vote. I wonder how that translates into their ability to recruit strategists and “thought-leaders” who can work on the campaign, policy and media sides and help to lead them out of their current slump.

They don’t have to worry about the egg-head vote. Since conservatism made education so costly we’re producing fewer American egg-heads in our universities. The foreign students who replaced them can’t vote.

In an historical note, Conservatives were the Tories who fought with the British in the Revolution. They were the slave holders who started the Civil War. They were the isolationists who didn’t want to stand up to Hitler. They were the Dixicrats who fought the Civil Rights Movement. They were the ones who didn’t want to give women equal pay for equal work, or even hire them at all.

As Robert Gates pointed out in his memoirs, Reagan got a lot of credit for ending the Cold War when guys like Jimmy Carter really set the process in motion.

I believe it was T.S. Elliot who said that “no cause is ever truly lost because no cause is ever truly won.” It may take a while but when people are sick of our standard of living continuing to decline in comparison to Asian economies and they notice that: The Asians are discplined, save money, are market oriented and have smaller governments in comparison to GDP, then the truth as we have known it since the time of Adam Smith will reassert itself and rent seeking by the government (to further “important” policies) will come to an end. We will return to the idea that market efficiency is good for everyone on average. We will understand that there will inevitably be winners and losers and to interfere too much in the process harms everyone at the margin, even the losers.

this “Intellectual decline of Conservatism” is just so much Right Wing Claptrap. The successof the GOP over the last several decades is base upon what Barry Goldwatter referred to as “hunting where the ducks are.” The “ducks” being disaffected white supremacists. Nixon continued with the “Southern Stratagie.” The race issue became the only “glue” holding the GOP together. Hardline evangelical racists have been hiding behind the GOP’s skirts all along.
While there is still plenty of racism among, us, it has lost its political juice. What good is a white supremacy party if they can’t even keep blacks out of the Whitehouse?
As well, when comparisons are made between Obama and his predicessor, white supremacy becomes an absurd proposition.

Posner is not the first to make such observations. Perhaps a stronger argument, in the same vein, would harken back to the positivism of the conservative tradition he cites (both political and economic). This surely is the sole hope. The Republican Party is so horribly broken it cannot be a vessel for rebirth of conservatism…certainly not on the heels of Bush, and with Huey Long in Drag (Palin) in the wings.

I was fortunate to meet Barry Goldwater with a mutual friend. As a man, Senator Goldwater seemed to be interested in everything. Today’s polticians seem to only be interested in politics.

Personally, I abhor both political parties. The Democrats just want to buy votes by spending our grandchildren’s money, and the Republicans just want to be popular like the Democrats.

Every politician with a new meaningful philospohy is marginalized — men like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Ralph Nader.

If the Republicans would move the party toward Ron Paul type Libertarianism, they would win the votes of many people like me,. As it stands now, I doubt I’ll even bother to vote in 2010 — not that it makes a difference, my district is so gerrymandered that G-d himself couldn’t win against the incumbent.

The truth is that Republicans never were exceptionally bright. Their success has always due to an attitude of “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Their optimistism has always contrasted with threats that emerge only through study and analysis. And the faith that God will take care of everything they don’t attend to and make everything all right is the whole basis of this optimism.

What always arises out the failure of their impulsive optimism is the details they failed to address, the facts they failed to believe, the analyses they failed to make, the strategy they failed to create. These post-mortems always credit intellectuals for saying “I told you so” after Republicans fail.

But the American People still want to believe in the Republican Spirit, and see these times of failure as a mere pause during which We must “recover” so that anti-intellectual optimism can again lead the way.

The real problem Americans and Republicans face in this 21st century modern age of Globalism is that the whole world is getting smarter, leaving Republicans and Americans in general relatively dumber. Sheer optimism in denial of countervailing facts that ignores the need for well thought-out strategies may not work anymore.

totally agree with posner – have been saying for years that conservatives are stupid, slogan-chatting morons. can you say “s-a-r-a”? the leadership of the party is like the membership in an anti-mensa society — hucksterbee, sanford, jindal, price, cantor, newtie, and the mormon — wow, what a group. stunning dullness.

As I am considered to be one of the leading intellectual conservatives, I feel obligated to express my opinion on Judge Posner’s post. I agree with Judge Posner. I point particularly to religion as the primary driver in the decline of the Republican party which forced many to separate themselves. Conservatives need to focus on pragmatism, generic morality, and critical reasoned thought rather than pointing to absolutes based on religious principles or dogmatism. Although, I do not have any idea what I mean, I think I sounded just confusing enough to have liberals questioning their own affiliation with the democrats. At least, I hope so.

The fiscal record of the USA shows that deficits decline under Democrat administrations, and that the last two great rapes of the economy have taken place under Republican administrations. Reagan plundered the treasury to bail out his friends in the S&L industry, and GWB established the economic disaster that has drained the public coffers today.

Republicans cry out for small government and small taxes, but it’s always the opposite that happens as a direct result of their policies.

Posner is always interesting, but not always right (his 2000 mini-book justifying the Supreme’s appointment of bush because bush would take good care of the economy is as far wrong as you can get). But I have my students read him–he is fascinating on discrimination issues.

Posner correctly hits the nail on the head in his summary: so long as the RWsquared (Right Wing Wackos) and jingoists rule the party the rest of us real Americans will not vote for them. Creationism replacing science? Head in the sand anti-global warming? Didn’t the rest of the world leave the middle ages behind????

I would like to know whether Posner uses his government office to further his private work? Does he use taxpayer paid for phones; interent; secretarial? He should disclose how much. Does he have his clerks doing his work? How much time does he spend on his lifetime, high pay, day job?

“My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism, and it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings.”

Obviously.

The GOP deliberately broadened its base by herding the Democrats who backed the Wallaces and Rizzos–uneducated, angry, fearful white men. Not much there intellectually, but their passions ran high, their fury was waiting to be tapped, and their interest in rational argument was nil. They could be whipped into frenzies, led in mobs, and exploited for their last dimes. They were River City for the Music Man.

Now they GOP has the wolf by the ears. The party can’t keep kowtowing to this mob of aging and increasingly irrelevant bohunks, but it can’t release them and their contributions. The world has passed them by, but they still have some venom left to spew and some dollars to cough up for b ooks by Hannity and Palin. “Weak intellectual groundings?” LOL…wehh, duh. That’s what you get when the supporters you manipulate attack intellectuals as “elite” and vote based on the certainty that the planet is 6,000 years old.

What might one say about conversativism? One great truth writ large by the constitutional fathers was that man at-heart was not good and therefore required restraint by law. The recent fiscal collapse was mostly due to a deliberate ignoring of the real and true nature of man. When the restraints were taken off, the greed and idiocy took over. Historical conservatism recognizes the real nature of man.

There are also conservatives of the “tort-deform” variety who hate Posner. For Posner, the legal market provides a crucial input to tortfeasors. Posner’s obvious answer to the problem of victims not claiming is simple. If only half the victims claim, then doubling their tort awards is the only thing that would give tortfeasors the right & accurate & accountable message–this is how much the injuries the tortfeasor caused have cost people..

for years i have said that the gop needed to get rid of the religious right. now, it seems, that the religious right is getting rid of the gop. perhaps we will have three political parties in the near future, who knows. as for posner, i fail to recall ever seeing the intellectual base of the conservative movement. from my observation, the conservatives, with few individual exceptions, have always resorted to labeling, race baiting, gay baiting, jew baiting, propagandistic nationalism, nostalgia, etc. i have yet to hear them discuss foreign policy in depth beyond bullying and different shades of gun boat diplomacy, except for nixon/kissinger. as much as i loathe carl rove, at least he was honest in his obvious use of any tactic to win and the palin/plumber & posner types lined up and voted accordingly until 2008. apparently the posner types realized that “with us or against us” is a way of life for some people and not just a political slogan. the nomination of senator obama brought out the true colors of the gop and those colors were too red for posner and others. remember, the color of communism is red, as well, and i don’t hear the palin/plumber types talking about equality for gays and women, or equality at all for that matter.

The policy evidence speaks for itself. We are less safe, less secure, less affluent, less innovative, less stable, and less prepared for a rocky future because of the policies of the conservative and republican. Regan began the fiscal and intellectual bankrupting of America with an idiodic arms race (if we had only listened to the Freeze advocates our social security system would not be on the brink) and Bush topped it off by creating the largest debt known in the history of mankind, all the while neglecting the economy, environment and health care – for which we are now and for generation to come going to pay an enormous price that could have been avoided. I know Bush won’t be reading this, so thanks a lot to all of you that voted him in and to this day can’t take responsibility. All said, to me it comes down to a republican party that is just that – one that can’t take responsibility.

If you’re a liberal, or want to be one, you can set in motion your understanding of the world so that, yes, conservatism fails every time. Reminds me of the Jim Carey movie 23 – everywhere he looks around the world all numbers and dates and times of day, through inference and/or implications add up to 23. Wow. Reagan did not end the cold war – Jimmy Carter did. Yes, it’s a self-fulfilling prophesy, if you say so.

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The Thread is an in-depth look at how the major news events and controversies of the day are being viewed and debated across the online spectrum. Compiled by Peter Catapano, an editor in The Times’s Opinion section, the Thread is published every Saturday in response to breaking news.